


Changing the Locks

by junko



Series: Curse of the Nue [22]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-03
Updated: 2012-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-13 11:40:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Furious at what Byakuya sees as Renji's betrayal, the captain... moves out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Changing the Locks

Byakuya flash stepped back to the barracks, nearly giving the sentry a heart attack when he suddenly appeared in front of her. She reached for her zanpaktō and shouted, “Who goes there?”

“Byakuya Kuchiki, Captain of the Sixth Division,” he replied as calmly as he could. 

She blinked at him in the moonlight. It was well past midnight, and technically she wasn’t supposed to allow entry to anyone, not even a superior officer, after curfew. Also, she clearly didn’t believe he was truly her captain, as she didn’t step aside instantly to allow him entry. Instead, her eyes continued to flick stupidly from his bare feet to his unbound hair and the lavender, flowered kimono. 

“Stand down,” he said. “I order you to unhand your zanpaktō or I will disarm you.”

It was, perhaps, too much of a threat given the situation. But, he was angry—insanely furious—at that horn dog of a lieutenant of his. Sleeping with someone else already? The dust had hardly settled from their most recent fight. Renji disloyalty was maddening and intolerable. 

The sentry continued to hesitate. Byakuya made good on his threat, using the hakuda technique he’d so recently demonstrated in the yard to send her sprawling to the ground. Her zanpaktō now in his possession, he tossed it in the other direction. Then he used a blast of kidō to release the lock mechanism on the gate and disarm the alarms.

When the door swung open, Byakuya turned to regard his soldier, “When the captain of your division gives you an order, follow it. Consider yourself on suspension.”

Despite the lack of alarm, three other night guards arrived on the scene instantly. Renji, it seemed, had them well trained. One of them, at least, had better facial recognition than his suspended colleague. “Captain! Sir! What’s the meaning of this?”

“Replace the sentry,” Byakuya commanded, and then pointing to one of the others added, “You, take her to the guardhouse for failure to obey a direct order.” To the last, he said, “You will go to the estate and awaken the head steward, Eishirō, and send him to my quarters directly.”

They quickly rushed off to do as told. Byakuya went upstairs and started packing.

#

“I’m moving back to the estate,” Byakuya informed his bleary-eyed house steward, and tossed the first of his bags in his general direction, not much caring if Eishirō caught it or not. “I want all my personal affects removed.”

“Of course, my lord,” the steward said in the tone of someone tolerating the whims of a petulant child. “Is your wish to have the rooms stripped bare or are we simply removing your overnight requirements?”

“If you continue to patronize me, you will do so as a former employee of the Kuchiki family.”

“A thousand pardons, my lord. My judgment is a clouded by lack of sleep and caffeine.”

The steward’s deep bow embarrassed Byakuya. The deference was much more chiding than the patronizing question had been. He took a deep breath. “It’s alright,” he said softly. “Just see that it’s done. I will retire to the estate.”

“Yes, my lord. Perhaps in a little while you would like a little herbal tea sent to the master suite?”

He was being directed to the rooms that were already made up and offered something to calm the nerves. He surrendered to being cared for, in this way, “Very good.”

#

Being shunted out of the way and not having anything to do, however, did nothing to improve Byakuya’s mood. He’d taken his tea out onto the balcony of the master suite, and leaned on the railing looking out at moonlit cherry orchards. The master suite was at the back of the great estate, and not, in fact, a set of rooms Byakuya was much used to sleeping in. Hisana had preferred the eastern view of the lake, and, in point of fact, he always considered this his parents’ room.

For some reason, however, the staff always kept it at the ready for him. 

The room he considered his bedroom--the one he’d shared with Hisana, and most recently Renji--they regularly closed up and shuttered, probably following some order of his from long ago. To open it required at least a few hours notice. 

Byakuya sipped his tea and tried to calm down. It wasn’t easy. But, at least here, at the back end of the manor when his reistsu sparked uncontrollably the only thing that suffered was the fine china plates the servant had brought with the tea. At least two already lay smashed somewhere on the grounds below the balcony, having rattled off the tray to their doom. 

That unfaithful cur.

No matter that their fight had probably driven Renji straight into another’s arms, Byakuya was still deeply wounded at how publicly Renji humiliated him. That Zaraki knew anything about their sexual history infuriated Byakuya beyond reason, and then to have Shunsui imply Renji had strayed due to a lack on Byakuya’s part as a lover…

Another plate broke with a tumbling smash. 

Byakuya took a breath and a sip of the jasmine flower tea. He supposed that he ought cut Renji some slack. It wasn’t as though they had discussed exclusivity, though Byakuya would have thought that would be obvious even to a rutting monkey like Renji. 

Byakuya caught the tea pot before it went over the railing. The serving tray it had been set on, alas, went over the side. He carefully moved everything several more inches from the edge.

All of this had only served to confirm Byakuya’s suspicion that allowing himself to fall in love only led to heartache. Rukia had convinced him, not moments earlier, that perhaps he was feeling something more than physical attraction toward that idiotic man. And, what did he find? Renji off screwing someone in that filthy, disgusting Eleventh Division.

 _Love_ , Byakuya sneered. He might as well have given Renji a knife and told him where to cut.

Worse, Byakuya would have to continue to work with him. He couldn’t dismiss Renji outright. The only charge of misconduct that would stick would be fraternization, and to do that, Byakuya would have to confess his own part in it. That would end them both, and, a court martial for something like that would eternally stain Byakuya’s family name. And, truthfully, as the superior officer involved, it was his responsibility to have stopped things, this whole mess was his own damn fault.

So he was forced into retreat.

Luckily, Renji was as competent an adjutant as he was a slutty run-around. The Division did not need their captain living in the compound. Byakuya could return to life as the manor’s lord. It was how grandfather had run the Division, and the Kuchiki before him, and the one before him, and so on. Byakuya had always thought that was and irresponsible policy, but perhaps all this talk of a need to set oneself above the teeming masses had a valid point.

Byakuya would lock himself in his gilded cage.

#

Since the barracks gates were guarded and locked this early in the morning and Renji didn’t want to have to explain his overnight absence to the sentry, he went to his favorite spot to go over the wall. It was a weak spot in the Sixth’s defenses, one he should really plug, but it had served him on a number of occasions like this, when he was sneaking back after a night of mischief. It also wasn’t completely defenseless, as it bordered the far edge of the Kuchiki estate, in particular a grove of thorny green locus trees. Climbing the wall here had its own risks.

The second Renji’s feet touched the ground, he sensed a change. Byakuya was gone. For some reason, the captain was not in his quarters or, as far as Renji could sense, anywhere in the barracks. Making his way to the mess hall, Renji accosted the first officer he spotted. It was Utako, a new enlistee Renji had a lot of hopes for, as she was always up early in the practice yard, putting in extra time with her zanpaktō, reminding him of himself at that age. She wore her Shihakushô sleeveless and showed off sculpted muscles and a bicep tattoo of a camellia blossom. 

“Oi, Utako ,” Renji shouted to catch her attention, and made a motion for her to join him. 

She sheathed her sword and hurried over to him, wiping the sweat from her dark brown curls with the back of her arm. Like everyone in the division, her eyes instantly dipped to check Renji’s side. Seeing Zabimaru there, she repressed a sudden smile, and nodded, “Sir?”

“Where’s the captain off to already this morning?”

“The estate, I think,” she said, with a little shrug. “I haven’t seen Himself, but I’ve been watching the servants move out all his personal stuff from his quarters all morning. They’ve been scurrying everywhere, looking real harassed. He must be in a serious mood.”

Renji rubbed the back of his neck. Byakuya hadn’t said anything about moving back to the estate. Renji wondered what had brought this on. Was it Rukia’s transfer bothering him or something else? “Huh, well, I guess I’d better go sniff out the trouble.”

“That’s what we count on, sir,” she smiled. “Oh, and it’s good to see Zabimaru back.”

He patted the zanpaktō’s hilt in acknowledgment, gave Utako a wave, and headed back in the direction of the estate. 

#

Renji went directly to the kitchen. He found Miki rolling up onigiri in seaweed wraps. The whole place smelled of chili and hot peppers. Comfort food? “Is something wrong with my captain?”

Miki had her wild tangle of red-gold curls pulled back in a thick ponytail today. A blue and white patterned cotton scarf tied like a kerchief around her head to keep the hair from her face. She smiled to see him and placed the triangle she finished in a tray containing others.

“Oh, hi, Renji,” she gestured for him to come over to the other side of the big wooden table and start slicing up radishes, which he did. “I was going to ask you the same thing. The lord stormed back here in the middle of the night, and it’s been crazy since. There were mini-earthquakes of spiritual pressure until sometime a few hours ago. Aio is devastated, she says he seems to be planning on returning fulltime to the estate, which means she’d be out of a job.”

“Huh.” Renji peeled the hairy roots from the long white vegetable. “The middle of the night?”

“Yes. Has something happened with the Lady Rukia?”

“The execution has been moved up,” Renji said. Having finished with the peels, he scooped them up in his hands and dumped them into the composting bowl. “I’m transferring her to the Senzaikyū later this morning.”

Miki put her hands to her mouth for a moment, “Oh, no! I thought it must be something like that. That explains the master’s deep seclusion.”

Did it?

Maybe. After all, Renji was sure that the transfer bothered Byakuya as much as it did him. Renji had been able to pretend Rukia was safe with them, in the Sixth. Now she’d be in the hands of Central, far away, on that horrible hill, facing the Sōkyoku. And, they suddenly had so much less time with her…

But, was that really it?

Renji started chopping the radish, looking to Miki after he made the first cuts. When she nodded at the size and shape, he continued. As he mindlessly worked, his brain returned to the puzzle of the captain’s late night relocation to the estate.

Could Byakuya still be sulking about yesterday as well? When Renji had left the captain just before diner they seemed to be getting along, at least professionally. Of course, Byakuya had yet to answer the question Renji had posed after the slap at the sentō… unless this was his answer? 

Had Byakuya decided that if Renji wouldn’t submit to this wakashū shit, they were finished?

How typical of Byakuya to just close the door and walk away and not even tell him what the fuck was going on.

“Are you alright, Renji?” Miki asked, finishing up her next roll. “I know Lady Rukia was a friend of yours.”

“She is,” Renji said, correcting the past tense. He refused to talk about her as though she were already gone. “She’s been my best friend since before Academy. We were in Inuzuri together.”

Miki smiled. “I’ve heard you say that, but it’s so hard for me to imagine. Lady Rukia is always so refined.”

Renji allowed himself a little smile, too. “She was like that then too—a shining light in the darkness. She’ll probably look just as elegant and dignified when she faces the executioner.”

“Oh, Renji,” she’d stopped preparing the onigiri to give him a pitiful stare. Her eyes were full of unshed tears. “I’m so sorry.”

He started in on the next vegetable, a lotus root, partly out of a need to keep busy and a desire not to be drawn into the sadness in Miki’s gaze. With effort, he said, “Yeah, me too. The hardest part is that I can’t do anything. As far as anyone knows, she’s guilty as charged. The law seems unwavering and uninterested in even entertaining extenuating circumstances. Instead, Central’s coming down on her like a ton of bricks. And, it’s my goddamn job to keep the peace, maintain order, and uphold the law, even when it fucking sucks.” Renji glanced up at Miki then, and seeing her horrified face, added, “Oh, pardon my French.”

She waved his apology off. “It’s understandable that you’re upset.”

“You know the biggest irony? Becoming shinigami was Rukia’s idea. If it wasn’t for her, I’d still be in Inuzuri—screwing around, probably having fallen in with some yakuza family, doing my very best to make everything just that much more ugly in that forsaken hellhole. Without Rukia, I would never have gone to Academy, would never have signed on to the Gotei 13. Now I’m the one standing guard enforcing the end of her career, her… life,” he shook his head. He set the knife down, and looked Miki in the eye. “It’s not right.”

“What are you going to do?”

Zabimaru rumbled, and, in his mind, Renji could hear the screeching cry of a wild baboon. The vision of a skeletal snake’s head with a mane of crimson fur flashed before his eyes for a moment. 

“Renji?”

He blinked, Miki’s voice cutting through the strange image, grounding him, bringing him back to reality. Renji realized he was gripping the wooden table with his hands, his knuckles white. “I… I’m not sure what else I can do, but my duty.”

Zabimaru hissed, a warning rattle.

Miki was looking at him, and he straightened. “Speaking of, I have to go.”

#

Byakuya really was in deep seclusion. He never came to the division all morning, though Renji found all the transfer papers and the request for a representative from the Sixth to accompany the prisoner signed with the captain’s mark and on the desk.

He must have been here early or really late, Renji thought. 

Had Rukia’s plight really kept Byakuya up all night? Renji wished he could go see her one last time, but there wasn’t time. Besides, he’d let a lot of division business slip between all this stuff with Rukia and… her frustrating brother.

The Third Seat came rushing up to him in a panic. “Where have you been?” He demanded. “Last night was a disaster. Miyake is in the guardhouse.”

Renji abandoned the papers he was sorting into priority piles and stood up. “What? Why? Who the fuck has the authority to put my sentry in the guardhouse?”

“The captain.”

#

Renji got the full story from Miyake when he went to authorize her reinstatement. She was still blaming herself as he walked her back to her quarters. “But it’s my fault,” she said. “I disobeyed a direct order from the captain. That’s a court-martialable offense.”

Of course every soldier in the Sixth knew all the regulations by heart. Renji sighed. “It is, but your primary duty as sentry was to turn everyone away after curfew. Everyone, Miyake. That includes the captain,” Renji reminded her. “Besides, I would have done the same damn thing. He’s got a key to the backdoor. Hell, there are a ton of estate entrances he could have used. I would have thought it was a test of our defenses.”

“Which I still failed,” she said miserably. “He disarmed me, sir. Like, instantly.”

“Yeah,” Renji agreed, patting her lightly on the shoulder in sympathy, “Which is why I’m letting the official reprimand stay in your jacket. But, don’t beat yourself up about it. You saw him do the same to me. I’m not sure any of us could have stopped him.”

Zabimaru made a wordless comment at that.

“You know,” Renji said by way of agreement to Zabimaru, “That’s a good point. We should be ready to face a captain level breech. I’m going to put my mind to that.”

#

Having put out that fire, Renji had to rush to meet the the Senzaikyū Guard. They were creepy as fuck with their long white robes and mostly hidden faces. Renji thought they were part of the Second Division’s punishment force, but no one knew their identities for sure. He could sense their strong reistsu, like pillars… or pillories, perhaps. Even after the head guard explained how things would go to Renji, he still argued some of the points.

“Rukia’s no flight risk,” Renji insisted. Gesturing to the weird poles that seemed to contain some kind of kinky kidō bondage gear, he said, “This stuff is hardly necessary.”

“I’m sorry, lieutenant,” the head guard said. “But part of the transfer is meant as a psychological punishment. The prisoner is to go into the Senzaikyū feeling the shame and weight of her guilt, so she can begin to reflect on her crimes.”

It still seemed like overkill, given that there were five of them, including Renji, all of them relatively big guys. It wasn’t like they couldn’t take her if she bolted-- unless they were expecting some other threat…? Though, if that were true, Renji wouldn’t have thought he’d have been instructed to leave Zabimaru behind. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and frowned into the eyes of the head guard, who stared back placidly. Fine, so this wasn’t really about security, despite all the guards and restraints. It was just supposed to be humiliating for Rukia. He sighed, regretting agreeing to this. “So explain the hood again.”

“It’s twofold. It’s unsettling and frightening, but also she will have to trust that fate leads her to her destiny.”

Now that just seemed mean and like a load of bullshit. But, it was made very clear that if Renji wanted to accompany Rukia, he’d have to obey all their rules and regulations.

“If you have no more questions or concerns, Lieutenant Abarai..?”

He unwound his arms with a shrug. “Right, let’s get this over with.”

#

Renji managed to hold it together the whole long march there. It helped that the guard had positioned him in front, actually. He never had to see her bound and helpless, and he could tell himself that he was still protecting her. After all, he was, in a way. As they walked through the streets, he met any eyes that dared judge. He set a pace that allowed her dignity—slow enough for steady feet under the hood, and fast enough to imply she wouldn’t hesitate or falter under pressure.

Even so, it was the longest walk of his life. 

Perhaps if the head guard hadn't told Rukia she could stare out the window and repent, or if she hadn’t looked so… devastated, he might not have been overcome by the impulse to finally tell her about the ryoka, and in particular the one who could only be her Ichigo.

He was still trying to process the whole thing, when he heard someone calling hello.

Captain Aizen? What was he doing here all of a sudden? 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the cliffhanger, but this was getting long and the Aizen/Renji interaction needs some space, I think.


End file.
